30 Years & Counting HHN 2021, XXX Let’s Stick This One!

[mechteach1]

Also, quick question that I don’t know will get an answer quickly enough! ;-) When do the rides open at HHN? My daughter would like to skip puppet theater and do MiB, but I wasn’t sure if that opened before 6:30

 

[Metro West]

Fwiw, we are doing stay and scream right now. We entered a holding pen at around 4:55, and still managed to get a beer at Duff Gardens fairly quickly and found a shady spot to sit (on the ground on astroturf, but nbd).

Not bad indeed. I spent many evenings waiting in the sun until the rope dropped and let us into the food court.

 

[soniam]

Thanks for the help! That was great!

Do you know when the EARLIEST you are allowed into the front park gates with the Stay And Scream? Is that 5pm? So you basically go in and then right to a holding area (that you can pick)? Or are you allowed in any earlier... enough time to run and try to get on Minions or something?

So it sounds like they use barcodes to scan. Here is what my tickets say, "You have selected the Mobile Ticket option for your ticket purchase. Your tickets are attached as an Adobe PDF file. Once opening, they have text, but also a large QR code (no old school barcodes). I guess that is what I need. Should I just keep our group of 4 tickets on one phone? Or should each person have their tickets on their device? We plan to stay together for the entire event.

Sounds like they may have gone to QR then. If you have mobile tickets, then you can use your phone or a printout. You might also be able to add them to the wallet in the Universal app, but I haven't done that with Express Pass before, just tickets and APs.

If you have Scream Early tickets, then I think they let you in at 3pm. If you have regular day tickets or APs, then you can get in anytime before 5pm. If you get in before 5pm, then you can ride rides. They will herd you into an S&S area by 5pm, but they usually start opening up around 4pm.

 

[mechteach1]

Also, quick question that I don’t know will get an answer quickly enough! ;-) When do the rides open at HHN? My daughter would like to skip puppet theater and do MiB, but I wasn’t sure if that opened before 6:30

In case anyone in the future is curious about this, they opened a few minutes before 6 - maybe 5:50-5:55 or so.

 

[Skywalker3]

Following all of this. We are planning our very first HHN this year, me and the 2 teens. very clueless about it all. Right now, planning Wed Oct 13, it's the only night of our trip that we can fit it in. It's Columbus Day weeks, so we're expecting it to be busy (and the parks.) Does the event ever sell out? debating buying tickets now or waiting? Also planning to do Stay/Scream, and start in CP, because I hope to start the night w Hill House/Beetlejuice. Other must-dos are Wicked Growth, Texas Chainsaw. What's been the best S/S pen to start, for getting the popular ones done, and what time to arrive??? Or best strategy for knocking out the most houses???I'm reading back through the thread, and getting excited.
Any other newbie tips??? Oh, and if one of the kids wants to leave early, can I like take them back, then re-enter park w no issues? and does express pass work on rides during HHN? i know they dont' on the houses, unless we buy the separate one for HHN. Thanks in advance!!!! love all the reports and pictures.

 

[mamapenguin]

Only HHN express works during HHN for rides and houses. Hotel express and Premier AP after 4 express do not. A couple of nights sold out at the start of this season, hopefully your Wednesday will not. I don’t know about leave and come back, but I suspect yes because one year we left the holding area a few times and then scanned back in. Hopefully someone else can answer better on that.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

So I noticed that the CityWalk movie theater is playing a lot of classic scary movies, just in case anyone wants to incorporate that into their trip.

Examples are: Psycho, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Friday the 13th, Beetlejuice, Carrie. And on and on.

I was actually pondering if we want to do stay and scream one night, then when the park gets crowded bail and see an old scary movie, then come back for the last hour or two.

 

[RebelHawk]

We're finally home from a great WDW and HHN trip and thought I would quickly share thoughts from my private VIP HHN tour.

After planning my wife and my first ever trip to HHN we decided to book the Private VIP tour since we wanted to see and do everything in one night. My wife is NOT a scare person and was reluctant at first but finally agreed to doing this. Unfortunately the morning of the tour she decided that she was going to opt out of joining me so I forged on alone. I arrived at CityWalk via Uber just before 4PM and made my way over to Big Fire American Fare for my 4PM reservation. I was promptly seated and enjoyed the bison burger which was properly cooked and well seasoned, I would certainly return to this restaurant on a future trip.

Around 5:15 I made my way over to the front of Universal Studio and joined the queue heading in for the Private and Group RIP tours. They promptly opened the doors at 5:30 and the check in process began. My guide, Kristi Kaye, greeted me and provided me my lanyard and once we got the go ahead we headed into the park. As I was the first person to be allowed in I grabbed a quick photo of the empty street leading in.





We made our way into the VIP Tour restaurant which had a nice selection of sliders, finger foods and desserts. Having just come from dinner I skipped the food options and headed to the back to pick up an adult beverage from the bar. With purchased drink in hand and a water provided by Kristi we started talking about what I wanted to get done. Being a party of one we discussed a plan of action and got started. Being a complete HHN virgin, Krisiti quickly began with a historical overview of the event and the houses this year and from previous years. As there are much better break downs of the individual house I'll just say that I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. The scare factor came down to timing as we walked through the houses but I was thoroughly satisfied with my experience. At the end of the day we ended up doing all houses once, 4 of the houses a second time, MIB, Mummy, Rockit and Gringott's twice. We made three pit stops over the night to replenish waters and grab another beverage or two. After walking back through the scare zones it was approaching midnight and figured I had done and seen enough to call it a night. After saying farewell to Kristi I made my way back to the Uber drop off area for my return ride to WDW.

Stand out moments were a brief interaction with Jack and getting to go onto the main floor of MIB.





I can't speak highly enough of Kristi and will be reaching out to US to provide excellent feedback with my experiences that evening.

 

[schumigirl]

We're finally home from a great WDW and HHN trip and thought I would quickly share thoughts from my private VIP HHN tour.

After planning my wife and my first ever trip to HHN we decided to book the Private VIP tour since we wanted to see and do everything in one night. My wife is NOT a scare person and was reluctant at first but finally agreed to doing this. Unfortuantly the morning of the tour she decided that she was going to opt out of joining me so I forged on alone. I arrived at CityWalk via Uber just before 4PM and made my way over to Big Fire American Fare for my 4PM reservation. I was promptly seated and enjoyed the bison burger which was properly cooked and well seasoned, I would certainly return to this restaurant on a future trip.

Around 5:15 I made my way over to the front of Universal Studio and joined the queue heading in for the Private and Group RIP tours. They promptly opened the doors at 5:30 and the check in process began. My guide, Kristi Kaye, greeted me and provided me my lanyard and once we got the go ahead we headed into the park. As I was the first person to be allowed in I grabbed a quick photo of the empty street leading in.

View attachment 607909

View attachment 607911

We made our way into the VIP Tour restaurant which had a nice selection of sliders, finger foods and desserts. Having just come from dinner I skipped the food options and headed to the back to pick up an adult beverage from the bar. With purchased drink in hand and a water provided by Kristi we started talking about what I wanted to get done. Being a party of one we discussed a plan of action and got started. Being a complete HHN virgin Krisiti quickly began with a historical overview of the event and the houses this year and from previous years. As there are much better break downs of the individual house I'll just say that I throughly enjoyed all of them. The scare factor came down to timing as we walked through the houses but I was throughly satisfied with my experience. At the end of the day we ended up doing all houses once, 4 of the houses a second time, MIB, Mummy, Rockit and Gringott's twice. We made three pit stops over the night to replenish waters and grab another beverage or two. After walking back through the scare zones it was approaching midnight and figured I had done and seen enough to call it a night. After saying farewell to Kristi I made my way back to the Uber drop off area for my return ride to WDW.

Stand out moments were a brief interaction with Jack and getting to go onto the main floor of MIB.

View attachment 607919

View attachment 607920

I can't speak highly enough of Kristi and will be reaching out to US to provide excellent feedback with my experiences that evening.

Loved your review and so glad you and your wife had such a good experience on the tour and HHN.

Thank you for taking the time to review it.....

 

[shb5007]

Curious... Is there WiFi in the park? How is it?

 

[AaronRif]

Curious... Is there WiFi in the park? How is it?

Yes there’s Comcast WiFi, and it’s generally good to excellent depending on the location. Bring a backup phone charger though since your battery will drain as you hop across all the WiFi hotspots in the park.

 

[tony67]

Yes there’s Comcast WiFi, and it’s generally good to excellent depending on the location. Bring a backup phone charger though since your battery will drain as you hop across all the WiFi hotspots in the park.

Yeah the wifi was OK - Im sort of surprised they dont have xfinity hotspots all over the place - seems like a missed opportunity

 

[heidijanesmith]

Our time at HHN 9/22-9/26.

We had a great time at HHN this year! It had been a couple years due to Covid, so we were very happy to come back!

This year was more "Adult" which was a huge relief. Last two years when Stranger Things was so popular, I have never seen so many young children and tweens. This year there was much less children under 13. One or two strollers and a few tweens, but not many. This was wonderful! We want Adult Scary back!

Houses ranked best to worst:
1-Wicked Growth Realm of the Pumpkin. Loved everything about this house. The theming was amazing and got some good scares.
2-Puppet Theater. Amazing set and scares.
3-Haunting of Hill House. If your a fan of the show, it's spot on. A few scares for me, but it was more for the set. The details were awesome.
4-Revenge of the Tooth Fairy. This was unexpectedly a really good house. Lots of good scares and loved the gore
5-Beetlejuice. Would have gotten higher for me, but one thing was not working (no spoiler). I loved the set and it was really a fun house.
6-The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Chainsaws galore, but it was true to the movies and a fun house.
7-HHN Icons Captured. I wanted to love this one more, but it was not as fun as the 25th HHN Icon house. I think the plastic barriers just really took the scare from it all. I did like how a different Icon would reign supreme at the end. We saw Jack one time and the Director another.
8-Case Files Unearthed. I was expecting this one to really have no story, nothing great. I didn't need a story for this one. It was a good house.
9-The Bride of Frankenstein. I think it was a well done house, but I did not really get a much of a story or scares. We only went through this one x1 on the RIP tour, so it might have just been off for me.
10-Welcome to Scarey OH. This one was just weird and lame. I could not figure out what it was all about. Not a great house for us. Again only did it x1 on the RIP tour.

All in All the RIP tour was amazing and we really enjoyed HHN in general this year. The weather was fantastic!

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Attended Saturday night 9/18.
I will say I did wear a mask the entire time unless I was off to the side and outside. I’m not here to debate. Just letting you know what I did.
I recommend bringing an umbrella or rain gear BUT the ponchos at MIB were only $10.
So entering was a disaster as we did not stay and scream. My parents actually rode a few rides and had a drink in duff gardens while I did some houses and we eventually met up again at Antojitos (which is excellent btw). We went to the right which was if memory and my photos mention to me was lights camera hack town which was amazing. Headed into the forest which was stunning and that’s where my parents and I split up. I went to puppet theatre as it was a 25 minute wait. While I found it more creepy than scary, the cast nailed it. Af the r venturing out for a poncho and to find a times board, icons was listed at 45 and I all but ran there. For a Saturday night, this place was not crowded at all. About 30 minutes into my 35 minutes wait (yes these waits were also inflated), I knew Jack wouldn’t be on the throne as he came out to greet us outside the soundstage! I was close but still far away (and too short) to get pictures or videos but it was amazing. I ended up having the director on the throne! Such an amazing house. I then made a plan because at this points my parents wandered through the scare zones and stores and went to Antojitos, where they sat at the bar and waited for I want to say. 9:30 pm table (this was around 8:15). My plan would be Beetlejuice, 30 years scare zone and the site won the way out before meeting up with my parents. Beetlejuice was a listed 70 but really 50 minute wait! It’s such a fun house. Yes you are going through the movie but that is part of the fun for me. And my stupid self still managed to get jump scared by Lydia and a football player. The cast was excellent. Upon exiting the house it was like 9:01 and I went to execute what was left of my plan (even at howl I scream and other haunts I maybe only do 3-4 houses as I love walking around and seeing everything) which was halted by the water show in Central Park which I totally forgot about! I caught the tail end and it looked amazing! I was going to be able to go through the scare zone and the store and meet my parents in time for a late dinner. However, and probably the biggest downside of the evening, was rude attendees. It was not crowded at all especially for a Saturday (I’ve been to HHN on weeknights where you can’t move an inch), but as I was turning from the water show onto the street where transformers is, someone who had been consuming a lot of alcohol proceeded to dump their beer all over the right side of my body. No apologies, no asking if I was ok, couldn’t even see other members of their party to make sure they were ok. Nothing. I immediately proceeded to the bathrooms in between mels and transformers and scrubbed myself as clean as possible and dry my shirt. After that, and exiting to even more craziness and rude attendees outside, I made the difficult decision to forgo the rest of my plan and head out to Antojitos.
I am not saying you can drink and have a good time, but please don’t be rude and be aware of your surroundings, even in non pandemic times. Being doused with beer was not something I planned for and honestly seeing all the rude attendees all but shoving TMs and almost harming scareactors broke my heart that I wanted to leave with a great memory. I’m relieved (and also mad) that they had to put new signs and policies in place because people were rude and do not care.
I do still hope you all go and tell me who was on the throne for you and that you have a fun time! And that you stay safe.

 

[Lynne G]

Our private tour group. Fabulous time with all.

 

[Lynne G]

This truck was open today during day time hours. Near fast and furious. If anyone interested in the only food truck I saw open during day, that I saw.

 

[tony67]

Im still not sure what to say about my Annual trip to HHN - overall Id say it was a disappointing year.

Far too many bad walk throughs and of course they are rushing you through as always.
I tried to limp through slowly but they were getting agitated with me when there was too much of a gap between me and the party in front of me.

I would normally have gone 8 or 9 nights - I think I may have gone 5 - it was just not worth my time.

The scare zones were mostly photo ops - all the rain did not help.
Many of the zones seemed to have missing SAs a lot of the time.
Many times there were missing folks at the entry scare zone.
The haction zone was not bad - but again more about photo ops than anything else
I really missed the roving chainsaws in Simpsons
Seek and Destroy - started out poorly but was getting better as the event went on - many people said they would have preferred to have the Purge back yet again
Crypt TV - again about photo ops - it was well done to look at but again no scares at all and it seemed like the grass hockey player was also missing quite a bit more than anyone else - maybe they could not find two people not sure.

The nightmare fuel show was basically Bill and Ted without Bill and Ted. From what I understand it was an inhouse show and many of the same dancers as Bill and Ted. One and done for me.

I went through one house and I think there were no SAs at all - or I just missed every one of them - even the guide was like what happened there.

I went through Icons multiple times and on a few never saw Chance which seemed a bit odd.
Jack was in the throne once, storyteller once, fortune twice, director once, usher once.
Sometimes the other icons where in the walkway to the throne - sometimes they were not

Had a really good walk though for Bride and it really makes a difference.
Texas had a few very good walkthrough as well - i think this will end up being house of the year.
Casefiles - I had one walkthrough where the singer was not even there??? This house really required a lot of background to make sense - great for the fans but most people where like what was that?
Beetlejuice - true to the movie and fun overall but a lot of bad walkthrough - only saw Otho once - that guy looked exactly like the actor.
Hill house- well done - Im sure if your a fan of the show it was great
Puppet theater - if you get a good walkthrough its good - but again only had one good walkthrough
Pumpkin - people raved about this one - but I only had one good walkthrough but that was too early in the dat so tough to see
Tooth Fairy - not enough SAs - too many manikins IMO
Welcome to Scarey OH - good if you know the background but all depends on the walk through

The behind the scenes tours were great - I did the 6 house and the 3 house - in future I will do this much earlier in my trip - maybe after the first night. I had the same guide for both of these - he was a former SA and really seemed to know his stuff. My only issue is they have 12 people on the tour and there is not enough room for 12 people.
I was told the reason they did not doo Beetljuice was related to things they sold last year so as a slap on the wrist they were not allowed to have it on the behind the scenes tour

I also did a Private RIP tour and that was really good - the houses and scare zone were not any better - hit or miss - but having the guide take you around and do whatever you want was a huge time saver and Jenn the guide was very cool. Hopefully I can do that again next year.

I did find the masks and plexiglass off putting - it was also getting beat up over time making it worse IMO
I get it was the only option they felt they had and I appreciate that.

The food and drink options were all pretty good - yeah the drinks are a bit weak but that is to be expected.
They should really have a photographer at the Chucky photo op - that was a bit annoying IMO especially since I go on my own

I knew this year would be different - but for me when I think about the cost overall it was not worthwhile.

 

[Linkura]

I had a lot of bad walkthroughs with missing SAs in 2019 as well and it really soured me on that year (except for Universal Monsters- they really had their stuff together in that house). Really upsetting to hear more of the same for 2021. I hope it's not a new trend to try to save money by not hiring/scheduling enough SAs to keep houses full.

 

[soniam]

@tony67 When did you go? I heard from some previous SAs on a podcast that a lot of people usually quit after the 1st or 2nd week. They just get in over their heads and don't have realistic expectations.

@Linkura There is a national shortage of scare actors. Really. Most of the haunts in Southern California are experiencing the same issues. There's a huge labor shortage all the way around. I don't know how they can overcome some of that. Also, depending upon when you went in 2019, see my comment above. I had a great experience in 2019 and rarely saw missing SAs. I went the first weekend of October. The only times I have seen a lot of missing SAs is right at opening in the first couple of houses if they are not the really popular houses.

 

[tony67]

I had a lot of bad walkthroughs with missing SAs in 2019 as well and it really soured me on that year (except for Universal Monsters- they really had their stuff together in that house). Really upsetting to hear more of the same for 2021. I hope it's not a new trend to try to save money by not hiring/scheduling enough SAs to keep houses full.

Yeah there is always the chance of a bad walkthrough - cast changes - someone late - just bad timing - sometimes all the scares are just ahead or behind you.
I always do multiple walkthroughs and Im sure the later you go in the event the better.
It's really unfortunate when it seems like that is all you get.

@tony67 When did you go? I heard from some previous SAs on a podcast that a lot of people usually quit after the 1st or 2nd week. They just get in over their heads and don't have realistic expectations.

Yeah - in talking to one of them its a bit more than usually this year - and on top of that they had trouble getting people in the first place as you pointed out.
Yeah I try to go end of September for ROF, but I may change that up and go later as its obvious to me that it gets better as they improve their skills so end of September beginning of October might be better - I just want to avoid jersey Week and the three day weekend as that increases crowds